Religious discussion... WARNING: Not for overly sensitive religious people.

[n10sive]

:|

didn't you already troll me once?

 

[Abyss]

OK. Got it. Let the religious bashing continue.

Here on BARF, if we see a bad movie, we bash on it. If we think a bike sucks, we bash on it. I don't see why a particular worldview or moral philosophy is any different. Please explain why religion is above criticism.

 

[jdhu]

Here on BARF, if we see a bad movie, we bash on it. If we think a bike sucks, we bash on it. I don't see why a particular worldview or moral philosophy is any different. Please explain why religion is above criticism.

And really, discussion = "bashing?" That just screams over-sensitivity.

 

[king of the curves]

As a scientist, I find it distressing that both religious and non-religious folks generally seem to view science and religion as either incompatible or non-complementary pursuits. Science doesn't prove religion wrong, or vice versa. But religious zealots who use arguments like, "oh dark matter...explain that...you can't so God must exist," do nothing but create an unnecessary schism between science and religion. Bill O'Reilly said that the tides are unexplained by science and therefore prove the existence of God. The argument that the unknown proves the existence of a god is only good until scientific mysteries are solved. O'Reilly just didn't know that the tides weren't a scientific mystery.

Likewise, people who think science can answer every question, either now or in the future, are displaying a comparable amount of "faith" as any churchgoer.

Not too long ago, the clerics and shamans were also the scientists. For example, Genesis is a good account of the origin of the universe and the evolution of man if one doesn't take the details literally. Some concepts of Taoism and Buddhism are metaphorically reflected in quantum physics. The divide that has grown between the science and religion is more of an issue of control over people's minds and opinions than an issue of inherent incompatibility, IMO.

It's the whole, if you are atheist you "believe" in science. If one more person asks me if I "believe" in evolution I'm going sailing for 2 years.

Science did not determine my religious views. Science influenced my outlook on the physical environment that surrounds me. It influenced how I look at and think about things; religion being one of those things. My science-influenced mindset does not provide me the opportunity to believe in fairy tales, nor religion.

To the OPs question, how. Well, it depends. If the person you are trying to convince grew up in a religious environment and has since moved on from religion it is going to be quite difficult. If the person you are trying to convince was raised in a non-religious environment it may be different. I guess their starting point and path to their current position has some influence.

 

[mean dad]

didn't you already troll me once?

How is that trolling? Dude stated in his title it was a thread about religion, and for sensitive folks to stay out. You and John immediately complain, and act like any discussion about religion is bashing.
Somewhat difficult to discuss a topic when only one side contributes.

Frankly I enjoy these types of threads, especially if they don't get populated by angry people of both stripes. You came correct in the Mormon thread, I kinda expected more of the same this time.

 

[Abyss]

And really, discussion = "bashing?" That just screams over-sensitivity.

My point exactly. Bashing is when a bunch of people agree that something sucks, apparently.

 

[jdhu]

Science did not determine my religious views. Science influenced my outlook on the physical environment that surrounds me. It influenced how I look at and think about things; religion being one of those things. My science-influenced mindset does not provide me the opportunity to believe in fairy tales, nor religion.

+1, well said.

 

[wackyiraqi]

I think I will go through with this. I just don't want to sound foolish and not prepared for the discussion. I know he will try to convince me that there is a God and that he loves me etc... I just don't know if I have the intellectual background and the confidence to disprove his belief.

It's not your responsibility to disprove that which cannot be proven. Further, he's trying to change your mind, that doesn't mean you need to change his, or even try. If I guy knocks on your door and tries to sell you a new vacuum, it's not your responsibility to try to sell him your existing vacuum.

Frankly, you don't have any skin in the game. As a non-believer, your social status, your income, and your eternal salvation are not tied to how people you can convert. So just relax, listen to his sales pitch if you want, and enjoy sleeping in on Sundays.

See you in hell!

 

[slydrite]

I am on a slow path towards Atheism. After being brough up Catholic and Christian for so many years, I am trying to grasp the fallacies incorporated within any religion. Thus, trying to compare certain groups' beliefs and opinions.

I still find it hard to believe that God would condemn over half the world's population to eternal damnation if he is such a loving God. I haven't quite figured that one out yet lol..

For me, the easy way to 'square' all the vast inconstancies, hypocrisy, fear mongering, hate filled speech, overly defensive believers, guilt ridden sermons, etc, etc is just to know and understand that all religions are just a long standing fairly tale meant to keep people in line.

Once one accepts that it's all a lie, passed down from their parents as their young minds are forming, the 'mystery' of god's actions goes away. It all makes waaaaaay more sense, once the "it's all BS" line is crossed.

I completely agree with the earlier poster who stated that the more the human race understands natural phenomena, the idea that if we can't explain it, it must be "the gods" at work, seems more and more ridiculous.

What's crazy to me, is why people who believe in god, don't know enough about history to see their actions and beliefs have been repeated countless times. Religious nutjobs have ALWAYS condemned those who tried to explain our world, as heathens and all other stupid characterizations. This is being repeated today when dumb people say that it's god vs science. So stupid. I challenge everyone who says that god is greater than science to stop doing everything they do everyday, that involves science. Like getting on an airplane or going to a doctor or using a computer or on and on and on. Prove that your money is where your mouth is and live like the Amish do. Prove it. Not one believer will do this, I guarantee it.

Ancient believers thought there were many gods, responsible for every natural occurrence that they didn't understand. They also thought the Earth was flat and anyone who said otherwise was jailed or killed. Why can't we learn from the past?!?! Why don't people now believe in all these different gods???? Could it be - EVOLUTION of thought???

 

[n10sive]

OK. Lets rewind this. This is where I made my comment.

How do you convince a mentally delusional person to seek help?

THIS is not a discussion. It's an attack on a group of people, many of whom are members of this community. Imagine if someone posted in a thread about gay marriage by starting that thread with "gays are mentally defective?" It's happened here and didn't go over well did it?

Here on BARF, if we see a bad movie, we bash on it. If we think a bike sucks, we bash on it. I don't see why a particular worldview or moral philosophy is any different. Please explain why religion is above criticism.

Religion is not one of the sacred cows on BARF.

Bash a bike, bash a movie. Discuss religion all you want. Discussions are usually polite and involve opinions of two parties discussed in a somewhat polite and respectful manner. The above quote is not polite nor a way to start a discussion. I have had PLENTY of discussions here on religion with people before. MeanDad references one of them. I am neither a religious zealot nor an atheist. But I could not articulate, nor do I care to on here, my beliefs and my PERSONAL journey that molded them. It was MY journey, not yours. I do not care to take anyone on it and convince them it would be right for them.

But if people want to call me over sensitive to yet another group of BARFers being called out and called delusional, then so be it. I am equally sensitive to other groups of people who become the fodder for bigots and insensitive people. I won't apologize for it. This is the ONLY post I commented on. I have not said a thing about any other pro/con religious post in this thread. Some are good...some are just the same old tired platitudes you always hear.

FWIW, I have a TREMENDOUS amount of respect for Godsdarling. For nothing else that she has faced the wrath of BARF on many occasion and still just smiles. She won't be intimidated by a bunch of bullies and deserves mad props for keeping her cool and staying here. Can't say I have that same level of respect for anyone else on BARF.

Carry on. I'm making my naughty/nice list to mail to Santa Claus so you better watch out.

 

[byke]

There is no god as written in the bible. There are no gods as written in any book. I am very comfortable stating this as a fact. Thousands of years ago they didn't exactly have police departments. It's an invention of man to create structure and prevent chaos. It was necessary at the time, but is not needed in modern societies. However, if that's what someone needs to control themselves, that's okay by me. If it was something adopted as an adult, I do think it's a display of being easily impressionable.

As a scientist, I find it distressing that both religious and non-religious folks generally seem to view science and religion as either incompatible or non-complementary pursuits. Science doesn't prove religion wrong, or vice versa. But religious zealots who use arguments like, "oh dark matter...explain that...you can't so God must exist," do nothing but create an unnecessary schism between science and religion. Bill O'Reilly said that the tides are unexplained by science and therefore prove the existence of God. The argument that the unknown proves the existence of a god is only good until scientific mysteries are solved. O'Reilly just didn't know that the tides weren't a scientific mystery.

Likewise, people who think science can answer every question, either now or in the future, are displaying a comparable amount of "faith" as any churchgoer.

Not too long ago, the clerics and shamans were also the scientists. For example, Genesis is a good account of the origin of the universe and the evolution of man if one doesn't take the details literally. Some concepts of Taoism and Buddhism are metaphorically reflected in quantum physics. The divide that has grown between the science and religion is more of an issue of control over people's minds and opinions than an issue of inherent incompatibility, IMO.

Science accepts all possibilities, while religion accepts science as long as it isn't massively conflicting, or is required to function in society. There's a bit of a diode effect here.

 

[jdhu]

FWIW, I have a TREMENDOUS amount of respect for Godsdarling. For nothing else that she has faced the wrath of BARF on many occasion and still just smiles. She won't be intimidated by a bunch of bullies and deserves mad props for keeping her cool and staying here. Can't say I have that same level of respect for anyone else on BARF..

And the June 2013 White knight/leghumper award goes to....

Just kidding. One person arguably made a non-conducive comment (it read more like "bashing" atheists), that's all. Your butt must be really sore lately...

 

[mike23w]

The questions are: How do you convince an Atheist to believe in God?

1. you need to first define god. everyone religious and non has different definitions.
2. nobody defines god, so when they do discuss it, they are talking about different things (ie. similar to blind men arguing what an elephant is). this leads to clusterfuck conversations.
3. you can make a case for god, i think, if you can show the universe had a starting point, and god was the thing that existed before that point and was responsible for the creation of the universe. this doesn't mean god looks like a man which to me is childish (and shows what a ginormous ego mankind has), it could just be some mass of energy or something we don't know exists yet - we don't have any clue. this would be a belief, it is impossible to prove or disprove, but is not completely unreasonable (to me at least) as a definition of god.

 

[HappyHighwayman]

1. you need to first define god. everyone religious and non has different definitions.
2. nobody defines god, so when they do discuss it, they are talking about different things (ie. similar to blind men arguing what an elephant is). this leads to clusterfuck conversations.
3. you can make a case for god, i think, if you can show the universe had a starting point, and god was the thing that existed before that point and was responsible for the creation of the universe. this doesn't mean god looks like a man which to me is childish (and shows what a ginormous ego mankind has), it could just be some mass of energy or something we don't know exists yet - we don't have any clue. this would be a belief, it is impossible to prove or disprove, but is not completely unreasonable (to me at least) as a definition of god.

Man created god in his own image.

 

[mean dad]

OK. Lets rewind this. This is where I made my comment.



THIS is not a discussion. It's an attack on a group of people, many of whom are members of this community. Imagine if someone posted in a thread about gay marriage by starting that thread with "gays are mentally defective?" It's happened here and didn't go over well did it?



Religion is not one of the sacred cows on BARF.

Bash a bike, bash a movie. Discuss religion all you want. Discussions are usually polite and involve opinions of two parties discussed in a somewhat polite and respectful manner. The above quote is not polite nor a way to start a discussion. I have had PLENTY of discussions here on religion with people before. MeanDad references one of them. I am neither a religious zealot nor an atheist. But I could not articulate, nor do I care to on here, my beliefs and my PERSONAL journey that molded them. It was MY journey, not yours. I do not care to take anyone on it and convince them it would be right for them.

But if people want to call me over sensitive to yet another group of BARFers being called out and called delusional, then so be it. I am equally sensitive to other groups of people who become the fodder for bigots and insensitive people. I won't apologize for it. This is the ONLY post I commented on. I have not said a thing about any other pro/con religious post in this thread. Some are good...some are just the same old tired platitudes you always hear.

FWIW, I have a TREMENDOUS amount of respect for Godsdarling. For nothing else that she has faced the wrath of BARF on many occasion and still just smiles. She won't be intimidated by a bunch of bullies and deserves mad props for keeping her cool and staying here. Can't say I have that same level of respect for anyone else on BARF.

Carry on. I'm making my naughty/nice list to mail to Santa Claus so you better watch out.

Solid response. Thank you.

 

[asthmodeus]

. Bill O'Reilly said that the tides are unexplained by science and therefore prove the existence of God. .

 

[mike23w]

i do think there are some mind blowing questions like:

1. did the universe always exist? how is this possible?
2. if the universe didn't always exist, then was it just first a vacuum? did the universe get created in this vacuum?

i can't get my head around either.

neither make sense to me, but seems that one or the other has to be true (universe always exists, or there was nothing, then the universe appeared out of nothing). pondering shit like this may make more susceptible to the idea of a god (although not the sandal wearing hippie kind).

 

[Traq]

Dawkins said it better, but everyone's an atheist; it just depends on which god you're talking about.

 

[jdhu]

i do think there are some mind blowing questions like:

1. did the universe always exist? how is this possible?
2. if the universe didn't always exist, then was it just first a vacuum? did the universe get created in this vacuum?

i can't get my head around either.

neither make sense to me, but seems that one or the other has to be true (universe always exists, or there was nothing, then the universe appeared out of nothing). pondering shit like this may make me believe in a god (although not the sandal wearing hippie kind).

Yeah, "The Universe" (and several other similar shows) on SCI is awesome, and really just leads to more questions. What was there before the universe, what would lead to the Big Bang? How does SO much mass get squeezed into such small sizes and high densities (the entire universe down to one single point?!?!)? Can we even fathom the INCREDIBLE distances, just within our galaxy?

 

[byke]

i do think there are some mind blowing questions like:

1. did the universe always exist? how is this possible?
2. if the universe didn't always exist, then was it just first a vacuum? did the universe get created in this vacuum?

i can't get my head around either.

neither make sense to me, but seems that one or the other has to be true (universe always exists, or there was nothing, then the universe appeared out of nothing). pondering shit like this may make more susceptible to the idea of a god (although not the sandal wearing hippie kind).

Don't you just love these conundrums? I can conclude nothing, but feel a pinch of awe at the awesomeness of...things. It's very common to reach for god as an answer when we reach our limits, but then someone else comes along and surpasses out limits without god.